Obama '08?

Miller wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
blatham, I disagree with you; I believe Oprah has much influence in this country, and her support of Obama will make a huge difference.

But, who listens to Oprah? Have you ever seen the audience?

Miller wrote:

Quote:
A serious chunk of the constituency, with serious clout

"Serious clout"? Aren't they sitting on most of that "clout"?

Miller wrote:

Quote:
Of Winfrey's daytime audience of 8.6 million viewers, 75 percent are women. More than half are older than 50, 44 percent make less than $40,000 a year and about 25 percent have no more than a high school diploma, according to Nielsen Media Research.

www.startribune.com

December 5, 2007, 4:30 pm
Change of Venue for Oprah-Obama Event
By Katharine Q. Seelye

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/promos/politics/blog/screengrab-stadium.jpg

Williams-Brice Stadium (Photo: gamecocksonline.cstv.com)

How big is Oprah in South Carolina?

Barack Obama's campaign has just moved its Oprah event on Sunday from an arena in Columbia seating 18,000 to a football stadium with a capacity of more than 80,000.

Tickets, which are free, went quickly on Monday, when they were first available, and the campaign had to shut down its distribution system. Now, the campaign says, tickets aren't even necessary, although it hopes people will RSVP through its Web site.

The new venue is Williams-Brice Stadium at the University of South Carolina. Doors open at 12:30 p.m., Eastern and the event starts at 2:30 p.m.

Did someone say something about clout? Who else can get 80,000 people to come out for a political event?

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sozobe wrote:

By the way there was a debate yesterday that I somehow overlooked. Here's the transcript (I'm about to read it, haven't yet):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16898435

I heard it live. It was the best debate of the political season. There were no moderator egos competing with the time clock on the candidate answers. The candidates were given lengthy time to give answers with paragraphs rather than short catch phrases. Even the so called second tier candidates were spotlighted. Mike Gravel had so much time to talk he didn't need to resort to acting like a horse's arse to get noticed.

If I hadn't known it was an NPR sponsored debate format, I would have thought the League of Women Voters had taken over again.

Was so impressed, I even wrote NPR to tell them.

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Back to the Iowa caucus which is just a month way. Obama has been hitting the college campuses hard. Real hard. And, reportedly, getting a good response. But the students will be on holiday break on the caucus date and some of them don't live in Iowa. The Obama folks have been spreading the message that those students do have the right to participate under the rules, even if their parents live out of state. Some hotels are offering special rates to students (the dorms will be closed) during the caucus time.
Obama opponents are crying "Foul! These kids are not true Iowans."

Young folks in the U.S. are notoriously fickle about actually participating in the election process, but Obama could turn out a bunch of them.

And, to add a thought, I vote for Nimh. His graphs are indeed pretty and his analysis is always interesting. He is now, compared to 2004, showing a more liberal (Democratic) tilt, in my mind. But he is still the keenest observer of our election process.

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The Obama campaign already has a plan for that. They've created a text messaging program for people to text messages to the campaign about the debates, speeches and on other occasions. You can also sign up to have the campaign send you reminder messages on your Blackberry thingie or cellphone on Caucus/Election Day to go vote.

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Butrflynet wrote:

I heard it live. It was the best debate of the political season. There were no moderator egos competing with the time clock on the candidate answers. The candidates were given lengthy time to give answers with paragraphs rather than short catch phrases. Even the so called second tier candidates were spotlighted. Mike Gravel had so much time to talk he didn't need to resort to acting like a horse's arse to get noticed.

If I hadn't known it was an NPR sponsored debate format, I would have thought the League of Women Voters had taken over again.

Was so impressed, I even wrote NPR to tell them.

I'm only about halfway through the transcript, but I definitely noticed and appreciated the job NPR did. Crisp, to the point, not a lot of frippery. Also actual follow-ups -- like, if a candidate didn't really answer a question, the moderator directed him or her towards an actual answer without the whole "yes or no??"-type grandstanding.

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Today at Cornell U, Obama gave an outstanding speech reminiscent of JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you..." You can read the entire thing here:

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/12/05/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_36.php

The highlights of Barack Obama's Call to Serve:

Expand AmeriCorps from its current 75,000 slots to 250,000 slots, enabling the program to establish five new Corps that address some of America's most pressing challenges: Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps, and Homeland Security Corps.

Engage retiring Americans in service on a large scale by expanding and improving Senior Corps, VISTA and other programs that connect individuals over the age of 55 to volunteer opportunities.

Double the size of the Peace Corps from 7,800 volunteers to 16,000 by its 50th anniversary in 2011 and work to partner volunteers with people from other nations.

Establish an America's Voice Initiative to recruit and train Americans that are fluent speakers of local languages to bolster our public diplomacy efforts abroad

Create a national online network, modeled on Craigslist, to connect volunteers to service and donation opportunities

Establish a goal of having middle and high-schoolers contribute at least 50 hours a year to community service, and reach that goal through national guidelines for service-learning and additional resources for schools to develop successful programs.

Connect disadvantaged youth to service opportunities and a pathway to success through the creation of Green Job Corps and the expansion of YouthBuild from 8,000 slots today to 50,000 slots over the next eight years.

Create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for Americans willing to complete 100 hours of public service a year.

Promote College Serve-Study by immediately increasing the percentage of Federal Work-Study Program funding that goes to community service jobs from 7 percent to 25 percent, and helping colleges and universities reach a goal of 50 percent of serve-study over time.

Expand the capacity of the nonprofit sector by establishing a Social Investment Fund Network to provide R&D capital to encourage innovation, find out what works, and expand successful programs to scale across the country.

Create a Social Entrepreneurship Agency to enable nonprofits to build capacity through improved collaborations with government.

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Oh wow, that was a great one!

Thanks for pointing it out, Butrflynet.

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Quote:

Oprah-Obama South Carolina Event Moved To Football Stadium
By Eric Kleefeld - December 6, 2007, 9:18AM
Oprah Winfrey sure is a draw in South Carolina. After free tickets sold out for her event this weekend with Barack Obama at a venue seating 18,000, they've moved it to a football stadium that seats 80,000.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/oprahobama_south_carolina_event_moved_to_football_stadium.php

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Butflynet referred to that up a ways <points>

Definitely cool, but I'm still so curious about how this will translate to actual votes. I can see that there would be people who want to see Oprah for free but wouldn't actually vote for Obama.

Still, what a way to get the ears and eyeballs. Hope he convinces the heck out of 'em.

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I see those Miller quotes as a lot of flying bigoted assumptions.

Butrflynet wrote:

Miller wrote:
cicerone imposter wrote:
blatham, I disagree with you; I believe Oprah has much influence in this country, and her support of Obama will make a huge difference.

But, who listens to Oprah? Have you ever seen the audience?

Miller wrote:
Quote:
A serious chunk of the constituency, with serious clout

"Serious clout"? Aren't they sitting on most of that "clout"?

Miller wrote:
Quote:
Of Winfrey's daytime audience of 8.6 million viewers, 75 percent are women. More than half are older than 50, 44 percent make less than $40,000 a year and about 25 percent have no more than a high school diploma, according to Nielsen Media Research.

www.startribune.com

December 5, 2007, 4:30 pm
Change of Venue for Oprah-Obama Event
By Katharine Q. Seelye

Williams-Brice Stadium (Photo: gamecocksonline.cstv.com)

How big is Oprah in South Carolina?

Barack Obama's campaign has just moved its Oprah event on Sunday from an arena in Columbia seating 18,000 to a football stadium with a capacity of more than 80,000.

Tickets, which are free, went quickly on Monday, when they were first available, and the campaign had to shut down its distribution system. Now, the campaign says, tickets aren't even necessary, although it hopes people will RSVP through its Web site.

The new venue is Williams-Brice Stadium at the University of South Carolina. Doors open at 12:30 p.m., Eastern and the event starts at 2:30 p.m.

Did someone say something about clout? Who else can get 80,000 people to come out for a political event?

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One explanation for some of the more baffling attacks on Obama by Hillary Clinton's campaign recently is that her staffers apparently hate Obama. I mean really hate him.

When talking to Clintonites in recent days, I've noticed that they've come to despise Obama. I suppose that may be natural in the final weeks of a competitive campaign when much is at stake. But these people don't need any prompting in private conversations to decry Obama as a dishonest poser. They're not spinning for strategic purposes. They truly believe it. And other Democrats in Washington report encountering the same when speaking with Clinton campaign people. "They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can't stand him. They talk about him as if he's worse than Bush." What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" You mean, he's, uh, uppity? "Yes." A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible."Read more here.

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Hilary's sense of entitlement is the primary reason that I'm so against her getting the nomination. It's about HER rather than the job.

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JPB wrote:

Hilary's sense of entitlement is the primary reason that I'm so against her getting the nomination. It's about HER rather than the job.

That's the same thing I've been sensing about Hillary, and why I have never felt she deserved my vote.

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Both Hill and Bill's love of the limelight outweigh any motivation to serve anyone, IMO. It's what I've always thought about them, and still do.

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Quote:

Butflynet referred to that up a ways <points>

D'oh!

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Meanwhile, remember this May, when Obama said he'd talk to anyone in the Middle East and use diplomacy against Iran? Remember how Hillary Clinton and all the major TV networks jumped on him for being naive? The CIA's new assessment of the Iranians' nuclear program seems to prove that Obama was the reasonable one in that disagreement. On the other hand, Clinton's and the talking heads' belligerent position looks pretty naive now themselves.

I wonder why the Democratic campaign circuit is so conspicuously silent on the issue, as is the TV networks' coverage of it. Somehow, Hillary Clinton's gaffes about Obama's ambitions in kindergarten seem to be an important public policy issue. But Clinton's belligrent approach to Iran being proven dead wrong, and Obama's being proven right, evidently isn't.

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The Obama campaign wanted volunteers to go and knock on doors in Iowa ( I lived there for 18 years) prior to the caucus. So I am flying to Chicago, renting a car, and driving to eastern Iowa with a cousin of my husband. We should have a great time if the weather co-operates!!

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Vietnamnurse wrote:

The Obama campaign wanted volunteers to go and knock on doors in Iowa ( I lived there for 18 years) prior to the caucus. So I am flying to Chicago, renting a car, and driving to eastern Iowa with a cousin of my husband. We should have a great time if the weather co-operates!!

Wear good shoes! I know you'll have fun. Been reading the reports from others who have done this and they all have nothing but good things to say about Iowans and the door-to-door-knocking weekends.

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VN, Why don't you spend a few hours in Chicago and meet up with Wandel, joe, JPB, and a few others who might be around>?

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I think that's a great idea, with or without political talk.

Meantime, I'm backing Obama more, in part from recent spine.

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